The Origins of Oligarchy: the Evolution of Communism and the System of Pressure Groups in the USSR

Abstract

The phenomenon of oligarchy in post-Soviet countries, mainly in Russia and Ukraine, has recently become the label for the functioning of the political system to distinguish the real participants of political processes. They, in fact, due to their un-established legal status replace the formal structures of a state, such as political parties or local authorities, in the process of decision making. The characteristics of the oligarchs` activities, their high position on the lists of the wealthiest people of the world, as well as their participation in opposition (e.g. Gusinski in Russia) or so called „ruling” oligarchs, result in new theories explaining the formation of a new political system and regime. Here we encounter methodological issues concerning the question of how political processes taking place on the territory of the former Soviet Union should be treated. While the institutional and legal analysis implies that the political system of the post-Soviet countries evolves towards democracy, the analysis of behaviour and activities of political subjects assumes that in the reality of so called „institutional democracy” informal governing structures come into existence, whose activities can be described as nothing more than antidemocratic. Such structures, referred to as oligarchies, are not a novelty in the history of the development of group system in Soviet society. They result from the evolution of the communist system, especially specific activities of pressure groups. When we pay more attention to the characteristics of political activity and behaviour, and less to the institutional conditioning of the system, the evolution of the group system in Russian policy perceived as the phenomenon of the influence of informal subjects on decision making, enables the comprehension of the character of the modern day oligarchy. Apart from treating both the social structure and political system in the Soviet Union as the nomenklatura (Woslenskij)1, barrackstyle communism, etacrarian impire (Radajew, Szkaratan)2 or as corporatocracy, which were discussed widely in the 1980s, the term oligarchy appeared in the second half of the 1950s. It was used by Milowan Dilas in his analysis of post-Stalin period of governing „The New Class”. According to Dilas it is the